Expanding the NCAA tournament? Don’t even think about it | College Basketball Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Ross Dellenger are joined by Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated to discuss how the first weekend of this year’s tournament was evidence that expansion would be fixing something that isn’t broken. Hear the full conversation on the “College Basketball Enquirer” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: I don't care how much you care about money, can't you just be like, hey, let America have this? This is fun? Can't you see that this is part of it. It's Oakland. It's Saint Peters. It's Abilene Christian. It's whatever the hell it's going to be next year.
Everyone loves it. Everybody loved the Oakland story, except the Kentucky fans. But that's the point. If your head coach is making more money than what the entire program spends, you shouldn't lose. But you can in basketball. That's what makes it so great.
I don't know what Greg Sankey's phrasing quite is. I don't understand it. It's not just him. It's Yourmark. It's other people. My god, get your head out of the books. Stop chasing every nickel and every advantage and just be like, you know what? I get to work in an industry that produces this.
This is America's tournament. It doesn't belong to you. It doesn't even belong to the NCAA. It belongs to all of us. It's too great to mess up just so you can get some perceived advantage of one more team in, maybe we get one more unit.
PAT FORDE: I couldn't agree more. How you could watch what we watched and say, nah, let's change it, just defies any sort of logic or enjoyment of the actual event.
DAN WETZEL: Do you have any joy in your life? You just sit there and go, I could-- there's a square spot over there on that baseline. We could sell an ad.
PAT FORDE: Reduce it all to an accounting question, OK. But, man, you're missing out.
ROSS DELLENGER: This is something I think all four of the Power four commissioners believe. But, man, the pushback we've seen on this issue is similar to the pushback we saw on some of the first CFP kind of suggestions from the especially the power too. Man, it's just like the fans of college athletics have, like, risen up, it feels like. And again, I don't know if that's Twitter echo chamber or not, but it sure is loud the last few weeks on all this stuff.
PAT FORDE: Listen to it. Listen to it, college leaders. And if it is all for them, then they all suck, because it's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea to mess with this tournament.
